Help Center : Teacher Edition

Fluency-based vs. Standards-based Math Measures

Some CBM assessment systems include timed computational fluency measures that resemble the “how many addition problems can students get correct in a one minute timed administration“. Our system does not include such measures, as we aligned our assessments with NCTM and CCSS standards, which emphasize other things.

Computational fluency is not always a product of an assessment, but rather a teaching/learning/thinking strategy in which students demonstrate flexibility in the way they go about solving math problems…with both efficiency and accuracy. For example, to build computational fluency, teachers can use things like flash cards, math fluency games, fluency centers — in which students move from center to center on a timed basis, each center focusing on a certain computational skill or set of skills, etc.

Our math assessments are not inherently fluency-based, are tied to two sets of standards, the NCTM Focal Points and the Common Core (CCSS), and are untimed (though there are timing recommendations for administering them in the manual…and teachers have the flexibility to time them if they wish). In an attempt to target students’ math knowledge/skills most directly, the problems on each test type are multiple choice, not “text-heavy”, typically require b/t 1-3 computational steps, and allow students to use a variety of strategies to solve each problem.

If teachers wanted a strictly skill-based computational fluency assessment, they could create or find test(s) that targets the skill(s) that they want to be readily accessible and usable by their students. An easy example of this would be a teacher giving a sheet of 25 addition, subtraction or multiplication problems and timing students on how fast and accurately students completed them. However, those items would have chapter and unit tests that were tied to the standards being taught.